Uncovering the Silveri Secret (11 page)

He was proud and private. It would take him a while to see what he was throwing away; it would take him even longer to admit to it. But after last night she felt a little glow of confidence burning inside her. It had
felt
like he loved her last night. He hadn’t said the words out loud but his body had said them for him. All he needed was some time to come to terms with his feelings. He was used to locking them away. He was used to denying them. But how long could he deny the powerful connection they had forged? It wasn’t just great sex. It was a connection that went far deeper than that. She felt close to him in a way she had never felt with anyone before. He had let her in to the most private part of his being. She
knew
him now. She knew his values, his strengths and weaknesses, his true self.

Bella pushed open the study door and found him standing stiffly in front of the window. ‘Edoardo?’ she said.

He turned and raked her from head to foot with his gaze. It wasn’t one of his smouldering ‘I want to make love with you’ looks. It was much more menacing than that. ‘I’ve spoken with the lawyer,’ he said in a cold, hard voice that was nothing like the deep, sexy rumble she had heard during the night and early hours of the morning.

‘Pardon?’

He shoved a sheaf of papers towards her on the desk. ‘You’re on your own,’ he said. ‘I’m no longer your financial guardian.’

Bella swallowed and took an uncertain step towards the desk. ‘What are you talking about? What do you mean? I don’t understand...’

His eyes were like blue-green chips of ice. ‘I want you out of here within the hour,’ he said. ‘Don’t bother packing. I’ll get Mrs Baker to do it when she comes back, plus everything else of yours left in the nursery. I want nothing of yours left in this house.’

‘Edoardo... What are you say—?’

‘It was a good plan.’ His hands were tight fists by his rigid sides. ‘Very convincing, too. Not many people manage to pull the wool over my eyes but I have to hand it to you—you came pretty damn close.’

Bella felt a chill freeze her spine. ‘What plan? I’m not following you. You’re not making sense. Why are you being so beastly all of a sudden?’

He swung the computer screen around so she could see it. ‘That’s what you’ve done,’ he said. ‘You planned it from the start, didn’t you? It was the perfect revenge. I can’t believe how well you set me up.’

Bella looked at the computer screen where he had pulled up a selection of online newspapers. The headlines made her heart screech to a stop:

Self-Made Tycoon’s Tragic Past Revealed

Former Bad Boy Victim of Child Abuse

Affair with Heiress Heals Wounded Heartthrob

There was a photograph of Edoardo kissing her in front of Haverton Manor. It had been taken only a couple of days ago—obviously through a telephoto lens, as Bella couldn’t recall seeing anyone about. But then she remembered the journalists she had run into in the village. Had they been spying on them? Had they dug a little deeper in to his past? She looked up at him in bewilderment. ‘You think
I
set this up?’ she asked.

‘Don’t give me that doe-eyed, innocent look,’ he said through tight lips. ‘Get the hell out of here before I throw you out.’

‘I didn’t do this,’ Bella said. ‘How can you
think
I would do something like this? Don’t you know me at all?’

His eyes flashed pure hatred at her. ‘You were the
only
person who could have done it,’ he said. ‘I’ve told no one about my past. Not a damn soul. Now the whole bloody world knows about it, thanks to you. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you. You’ve always been a little two-faced cow. You wanted to get me back for not agreeing to your engagement. Well, you can marry whomever you like. I don’t give a damn.’

Bella was reeling with shock, hurt and disbelief. ‘I can’t believe you think I would do this to you on purpose,’ she said. ‘There were journalists in the village when I went down for milk yesterday. I didn’t tell you because—’

‘Because you lured them down here with a tell-all exclusive, didn’t you?’ he said with a snarl. ‘What did you think that last headline was going to do—force me to get down on bended knee and ask you to marry me?’

Bella glanced at the
Affair with Heiress Heals Wounded Heartthrob
headline. She swallowed tightly and looked at him again. ‘I didn’t say anything to them about...’ She flushed and dropped her gaze. ‘I might have mentioned something to my mother...’

He let out an expletive. ‘So the two of you cooked this up, did you?’ he said. ‘I should’ve guessed. That’s why she came down a couple of days ahead of you, to scope out the scene.’

‘No,’ Bella said, her heart sinking in despair. ‘That’s not what happened at all. I didn’t do it on purpose. I just mentioned you’d had a terrible childhood. She was saying mean things about you and I thought—’

‘You thought you’d have a cosy little gossip and destroy everything I’ve worked so hard for,’ he said bitterly.

‘Why does people knowing about your past destroy anything?’ Bella asked. ‘You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. People will admire you for being so resilient. I know they will.’

His eyes glittered with contempt. ‘I don’t expect you to understand,’ he bit out. ‘You love all the attention. You’re never out of the damn papers. You couldn’t have picked a better way to get back at me. I value my privacy about everything. You
knew
that.’ He curled his lip. ‘All that talk of love and wanting the fairy tale—what a load of rubbish. You don’t love anyone but yourself. You never have.’

Bella was struggling not to break down. Only her pride kept her from having an emotional meltdown. She was so hurt, so devastated that he believed her to be capable of such loathsome behaviour. But it wasn’t just his lack of trust that hurt her the most. He was pushing her away, locking her out,
rejecting
her. It was so crushing to be dismissed as if she had meant nothing to him other than a temporary diversion—a pretty toy that hadn’t turned out to be all it had promised to be. If he cared even an iota for her, wouldn’t he be doing everything to try to understand how this had come about? Wouldn’t he understand that her openness was not wrong, just different from his need for privacy? ‘I guess that’s it, then,’ she said, straightening her shoulders. ‘I’ll get on my way.’

‘I never want to see you again,’ he said as he glowered at her broodingly. ‘Do you understand? Never.’

‘Don’t worry,’ she said with a toss of her head as she swung away to the door. ‘You won’t.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I
T
WAS
weeks before the furore in the press died down. Just about every person who had ever had anything to do with Edoardo during his childhood came out of the woodwork to give an exclusive. The worst of it was that even though his stepfather was now dead, his new wife and family sprang to his defence as if he had been a plaster saint. No doubt having been assured that no one could prosecute a dead man, they made him out to be the victim of a smear campaign.

It totally disgusted Bella. She felt sick every time she saw another article. She felt to blame, even though all she had tried to do was make her mother understand how difficult his childhood had been for Edoardo.

Her mother was unrepentant, however. Bella had hoped Claudia might contact Edoardo and apologise, but her mother seemed to relish the fact that his tragic past was being talked about by every man and woman on the street.

Bella had thought about contacting him herself and explaining that it had been her mother who had given the tell-all interview to the press, but she knew he wouldn’t believe her. He didn’t trust her. He didn’t trust anyone.

The lawyer had contacted Bella and she now had full control of her finances. But it was a bittersweet victory. She had more money than she knew what to do with.

But she felt terribly, achingly lonely.

The nights were the worst. Her friends would try to get her to go out with them to party or for dinner but she preferred to stay at home, curl up on the sofa and mindlessly watch whatever was on television. Sometimes she didn’t even have the energy to switch it on; instead she would sit staring blankly into space, wondering how someone with so much wealth could be so miserably, desperately unhappy.

Julian had been gracious about her breaking off their relationship, which more or less confirmed that her decision to end it had been the right one. He had seemed more concerned that she would still donate a large sum to his mission. If he had truly loved her, wouldn’t he have fought just a little bit for her?

Which brought her thoughts right back to Edoardo. He hadn’t fought for her either. He hadn’t even given her the benefit of the doubt. He had evicted her from his life as if she meant nothing to him.

Bella blew out a breath and tossed the sofa cushion to the floor. There was no point thinking about Edoardo. She was going to be on the other side of the world this time next week. She had organised a trip to Thailand to visit the orphanage she was now the proud patron of. So far she had managed to keep
that
out of the press. She couldn’t wait to get away and put this whole dreadful episode behind her.

* * *

Edoardo was brooding over some plans for a big development he was working on in a nearby county when Mrs Baker came in with his coffee. He had a migraine starting at the backs of his eyes, the third one he’d had this week. It felt like dress-making pins were being drilled into each eyeball. ‘Thanks,’ he said, briefly glancing at her.

Mrs Baker stood with her arms folded across her ample chest, her lips pressed firmly together.

‘Is there a problem?’ he asked.

‘Have you seen today’s papers?’

He kept his gaze trained on the plans in front of him. ‘I haven’t looked at the paper in weeks,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing of interest to me in them.’

Mrs Baker took a folded up paper out of her apron pocket and handed it to him. ‘I think you need to see this,’ she said. ‘It’s about our Bella.’

Edoardo looked at the folded newspaper without touching it. ‘Take it away,’ he said and returned to his plans. ‘I have no interest in what she’s up to. It has nothing to do with me any more.’

Mrs Baker unfolded the paper and started to read. ‘“Society heiress Arabella Haverton has been named as the much-speculated about, anonymous patron for an orphanage in Thailand. Miss Haverton has reputedly already spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on food, clothing and toys for the children. She refused to confirm or deny the rumour when she boarded a flight to Bangkok yesterday.”’ She lowered the paper and gave Edoardo a beady look. ‘Well, what do you think?’

He leaned back in his chair, rolling a pen between his finger and thumb. ‘Good for her,’ he said.

Mrs Baker frowned. ‘Is that all you can say?’

He tossed the pen to the desk. ‘What do you want me to say?’ he asked. ‘I don’t care what she spends her money on. I told you—it’s nothing to do with me any more.’

The housekeeper puffed herself up like a broody hen. ‘What if something happens to her over there?’ she asked. ‘What if she gets some horrible tropical disease?’

He gave her a bored look before turning back to his papers. ‘They do have doctors over there, you know.’

Mrs Baker’s voice choked up. ‘What if she decides to stay there?’ she asked. ‘What if she
never
comes back?’

Edoardo drew in a short breath and glowered at her. ‘Why should that be of any concern to me?’ he asked. ‘I’m glad to see the back of her.’
Liar,
he thought.
You miss her so much, you’re almost sick with it.

‘You’re not,’ Mrs Baker said, speaking his thoughts out loud. ‘You’re miserable. You’re like a bear with a sore head. You’re not the same man since she was down here with you. Even Fergus is off his food.’

Edoardo picked up his pen again and started clicking it for something to do with his hands. He wasn’t sure he liked being
that
transparent. Next thing, he would be made a fool of in the press for being heartbroken over his failed relationship with Bella. That would be the last straw. He was not going to be painted as a lovesick fool, not if he could help it. ‘That’s because Fergus is old,’ he said.

‘Yes, well, one day you’ll be old too,’ Mrs Baker said. ‘And what will you have to show for your life? A fancy house and more money than you can poke a stick at, but no one to mop your brow when you have one of your headaches, no one to smile at you and tell you they love you more than life itself. A blind man could see Bella isn’t capable of spilling her guts to the press. She’s open with people, but that’s what’s so loveable about her. She wears her heart on her sleeve. No, that leak to the press was the work of her mother.’ She slapped the paper on his desk. ‘You can read all about Claudia Alvarez’s exclusive interview on her daughter’s charity efforts on page twenty.’

Edoardo frowned as he looked at the paper lying on his desk. He had already considered the possibility that Bella wasn’t responsible for that leak to the press. He knew what journalists were like. And, yes, Mrs Baker was right; Bella was like an open book when it came to her feelings.

But it didn’t change a thing.

He didn’t want to expose himself to the pain of loving someone, especially someone like Bella. She was flighty and impulsive. How long would it be before she fell in love with someone else? He would feel abandoned all over again. He couldn’t bear to feel that wretched feeling of having no one—no one at all.

He was fine on his own. He was used to it.

He would get used to it again.

Sure, it had been miserably lonely around here without her. The house seemed too big for him now; the empty rooms mocked him as he wandered past. His bedroom was the worst. He could barely stand to be in there with the lingering trace of Bella’s perfume haunting him. The long, wide corridors echoed with his solitary footsteps. It even felt colder in spite of him cranking up the heating. Even Fergus kept looking up at him with a hangdog look on his face, reminding him that all the colour and joy had gone out of his life.
He
had sent it out of his life. He had sent Bella away when the one thing he wanted was to have her close.

He raised his gaze back to the housekeeper’s. ‘Don’t you have work to do?’ he asked.

Mrs Baker pursed her lips. ‘That girl loves you,’ she said. ‘And you love her but you’re too darned stubborn to tell her. You’re even too stubborn to admit it to yourself.’

‘Will that be all?’ he asked with an arched brow.

‘She’s probably crying herself to sleep every night,’ she said. ‘Her father would be spinning in his grave; I’m sure of it. He thought you would do the right thing by her. But you’ve abandoned her when she needed you the most.’

He pushed back his chair and got to his feet. ‘I don’t want to listen to this.’
I know I’ve been a stupid fool. I don’t need my housekeeper to tell me. I need time to think how I’m going to dig my way out of this and win Bella back. Is there a way to win her back? Isn’t it already too late?

Mrs Baker’s eyes watered up. ‘This is her home,’ she said. ‘She belongs here.’

‘I know,’ he said as he expelled a long, uneven breath. ‘That’s why I’m sending her the deeds. The lawyers are sorting it out as we speak.’

Mrs Baker’s eyes rounded. ‘You’re not going to live here any more?’

‘No.’ Giving up Haverton Manor was the easy bit. Losing Bella was the thing that gutted him the most. What had he been thinking?
Had
he been thinking? What would the rest of his life be like if she went off and married someone else? What if she had
their
children instead of his? How could he bear it? He wanted her. He
loved
her. He adored her. She was his world, his future, his
heart
. But it was too late. He had hurt her terribly. She would never forgive him now. He didn’t dare hope she would. He was already preparing himself for the disappointment. It was best if he took himself out of the picture and let her get on with her life. He had never belonged in it in the first place.

‘But what about Fergus?’ Mrs Baker asked.

‘Bella can look after him,’ he said. ‘He’s her father’s dog, after all.’

‘But that old dog loves you,’ she said. ‘How can you just walk away?’

He gave her a grim look. ‘It’s for the best.’

* * *

Bella spent the first few days at the orphanage in a state of deep culture-shock. She barely ate or slept. It wasn’t that the children weren’t being cared for properly, more that she couldn’t quite get her head or her heart around the fact that the little babies and children she played with daily had nobody in their lives other than the orphanage workers. She spent most nights sobbing herself to sleep at their heartbreaking plight. Each day from dawn till late at night she gathered them close and tried to give them all the love and joy they had missed out on. She showered them with affection and praise. She played with them and read to them; she even sang to them with the few nursery rhymes she remembered from her own early childhood before her mother had left.

‘You will exhaust yourself if you don’t take a proper break now and again,’ Tasanee, one of the senior workers, said during Bella’s second week.

Bella kissed the top of an eight-week-old baby girl’s downy head as she cradled her close against her chest. ‘I don’t want to put Lawan down until she goes to sleep,’ she said. ‘She cries unless someone is holding her. She must be missing her mother. She must sense she’s never coming back.’
And I know what it’s like to feel so alone and abandoned.

‘It is sad that her mother and father died,’ Tasanee said as she touched the baby’s cheek with her finger. ‘But we have a couple lined up to adopt her. The paperwork is being processed. She will have a good life. It is easier for the babies; they don’t remember their real parents. It’s the older ones who have the most trouble adjusting.’

Bella looked across to where a group of children were playing. There was a little boy of about five who was standing on the outside of the group. He didn’t join in the noisy game. He didn’t interact with anyone. He just stood there watching everything with a serious look on his face. He reminded her of Edoardo. How frightening it must have been for him to feel so alone, to face daily the horrible abuse from a vindictive stepfather. Bella ached for the little boy he had once been. She ached for the future she so desperately wanted with him but now could never have. She determined she would do all she could for each and every one of these children so that they would not suffer what he had suffered.

‘Miss Haverton?’ Sumalee, another one of the orphanage helpers, came across to Bella once she had put Lawan down for her nap. ‘This came for you in the post.’

Bella took the A4 envelope. ‘Thanks.’ She peeled it open and took out the document inside. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head when she saw what it was. ‘I think there’s been a mistake...’

‘What’s wrong?’ Sumalee asked.

Bella gnawed at her lip as she shuffled through the other papers that had come with the deeds to Haverton Manor. ‘I think I might have to go back to Britain to sort this out...’

‘Will you come back soon?’ Sumalee said.

Bella tucked the document back inside the envelope and gave the young girl a quick, reassuring smile. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ she said. ‘I have to see a man about a dog.’

* * *

Edoardo was loading the last of his things in his car when he saw a sports car come speeding up the driveway. Fergus got up from the front step and started wagging his tail, a soft whine sounding from his throat. ‘For God’s sake, don’t gush,’ Edoardo said out of the side of his mouth. ‘She’s probably only back to argue over some of the fine print.’

Bella got out of the car and came towards him, bringing the scent of spring flowers with her. ‘What the hell is going on?’ she asked, waving a sheet of paper at him.

‘It’s yours,’ Edoardo said. ‘The manor is yours, and so is Fergus.’

Her brows jammed together over her nose. ‘Are you without
any
feeling at all?’ she asked. ‘That dog loves you. How can you just—’ she waved her hands about theatrically ‘—just hand him over like a parcel you don’t want?’

‘I can’t take him with me.’

‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Away.’

‘Away where?’

He slammed the boot. ‘I don’t belong here. It’s your home, not mine.’

She shoved the papers at him. ‘I don’t want it.’

He shoved the papers back. ‘I don’t want it either,’ he said.

She glowered at him. ‘Why are you doing this?’